Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of railway services between London and Woking.

South Western Railways’s (SWR) Franchise Agreement contains provisions that incentivises SWR to improve its own performance, and to work jointly with Network Rail. Challenging targets for performance have been set and where performance falls below expected levels, SWR is required to invest additional sums of money into initiatives to address the causes of the poor performance. This has been the case in the first two years of the Franchise, where targets were not met. My officials continue to closely monitor SWR’s performance and are currently in the process of contracting a Remedial Agreement plan.